Three-quarters of UK firms do not have a disaster recovery or business continuity plan in place, it has been claimed.

Computerweekly.com reports the findings of a study by Kroll Ontrack which also discovered that 65 per cent of respondents said their company had now dedicated budget for disaster recovery or business continuity.

The survey also found that 90 per cent of firms have had to recover lost data in the past year.

A lack of disaster recovery and business continuity planning can mean increased costs and panicked staff, Kroll Ontrack said.

Of the firms that did back up data, tape is still the preferred method however, 62 per cent of IT professionals confessed that their backup media and processes are untested.

Last week, Siliconrepublic.com reported the findings of a Strencom study which found over two-thirds of Irish firms do not have a full disaster recovery plan in place.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to www.totalrecall.co.uk